Annual State House repairs irk lawmaker

The government was yesterday blamed for spending 50bn/-in ten years on repairing the State House.

It was also advised to trim the size of the cabinet, which consists of 54 ministers including the president, in order to reduce expenditures.

Opposition MP Suzan Lyimo (Special Seats - Chadema) made the remarks when contributing to budget estimates of the Prime Minister’s Office. She said in the new financial year 10bn/- would be allocated for repairs of the State House.

Lyimo said that parliamentarians had been regularly speaking on reducing the size of the cabinet but nothing had been done. She said the cabinet had 54 ministers, including the president, prime minister and the president of Zanzibar.

Lyimo said statistics from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) showed that Tanzania, which ranks 97 among countries with a GDP of 21bn/-, had a larger cabinet compared to the US, which has a GDP of USD 14 trillion with a cabinet of 15 ministers only.

She said Japan, which ranks third among rich countries globally, has 17 ministers though its GDP is USD 5 trillion, while Germany has only 15 ministers.

“Tanzania, which is the poorest country among the three, has a cabinet of ministers which is three times compared to the US……so it is important to trim it if we want to reduce expenditures. We are spending too much on this,” she noted.

She said the plan to shift the capital to Dodoma was 35 years old, but the central government was still operating from Dar es Salaam. She said Nigeria, with all its political problems, had succeeded in shifting its capital.

According to her, last years’ parliament allocated 7.2bn/- for the State House repairs. She said the minister should state clearly on which State House the amount was spent and why the president was not moving to Dodoma.